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There’s a lot to talk about today. I’ll start with the most recent news. Harold Ford’s introductory piece in the New York Post today demonstrates his seriousness and his instinct to try to get ahead of his opponents’ attempts to define him negatively. I don’t think that this is enough, though, at least not yet.

Ford has to overcome a number of challenges. That the national Democratic establishment opposes him is a problem. And as much as Ford tried to deny the fact that he’s ever tried to frame himself as a conservative in today’s column, he still has to contend with his record. One op-ed piece is not going to convince voters that he is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. In my new edited volume, my colleague Sekou Franklin aptly demonstrated Ford’s willingness to emphasize different aspects of his background and policy stances to appeal to white and black voters. Some people would call his efforts strategic, but others would call it disingenuous. He should not be surprised when New Yorkers call him to task when he has made conflicting statements on issues or when it seems like his epiphanies on certain issues seem a little too convenient.

I also think that while the racial dynamic is very different in New York than it is in Tennessee, he will still have racial obstacles to face. Yes, I don’t think that New York voters will care that he is interracially married, and I certainly don’t expect another bimbo ad of the kind the RNC produced in 2006. However, I do think that race may limit Ford’s potential as a carpetbagger. This limit is largely structural. Because the Obama name is the first black political name to have national cachet, Ford doesn’t reap the same name ID benefits as his white predecessors who have held that seat even though he comes from Tennessee’s black political dynasty. In short, he’s not as famous as Hillary Clinton or Bobby Kennedy. As such, voters may be less tolerant of Ford’s carpetbagging than they were when HRC and RFK made the same move.

It was also very interesting that Ford tried to present himself as a reformist newcomer, even donning the mantle of Newark Mayor Cory Booker (which was misspelled in Ford’s article) to prove his reformist bona fides. Again, just because Ford claims the reformist underdog mantle doesn’t make it so. For starters, as I explain in the first chapter Whose Black Politics? (Sorry to keep plugging my book, but it’s actually relevant here), Ford may be the embattled underdog in this contest, but he is not Cory Booker (who by the way, is the subject—along with race politics in Newark—of my next book). The fact that Ford inherited his first political seat gives him very different political resources and baggage than Cory Booker, which means he can’t run as a Booker clone. In fact, it is almost laughable that Ford would rail against New York’s political “machine” when his father’s machine got him elected in Memphis. Ford is not anti-machine; he’s just anti-machine when the machine opposes him.

Ford’s attempt to try to restart his political career in another state is a bold move, one that few politicians of any stripe would dare take. I am concerned, though, that because Ford is relatively unknown in New York with the aforementioned structural deficits, voters may have a lower tolerance for his form of carpetbagging than they had for Kennedy or Clinton.

I think that the Ford column dovetails nicely with the question of whether the Republicans stand to lose from becoming the pot calling the kettle black. I don’t know that the GOP stands to lose any more than they already have among minority voters from this episode. However, it is ironic to note that Republicans are attacking Reid as they have continually and publicly undermined their first black chairman. As I said yesterday, Steele has sometimes invited criticism with his rhetoric, and I don’t think “first blacks” should be handled with kid gloves because they’re “first blacks.” However, I cannot help but wonder if there are racial undertones to the attacks on Steele. Were Republicans really ready for a bombastic, black chairman who challenged good ol’ boys as well as the Democrats and got more national attention than his white predecessors?

I actually think that Steele and Ford are two sides of the same coin. I’m not sure that black chutzpah is rewarded in the same way that white, male chutzpah is rewarded (unless it is packaged in the most innocuous way (like Obama)), and both Ford and Steele may pay the price for it. Race may indirectly affect voters’ sensitivity to Ford’s attempt at carpetbagging, and race may make Steele a pariah within his own party, even when his attempt at “tough love” was in good faith.

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